Publishers must embrace ebooks, not fear them as devil’s devices

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These are tough times for books — at least the printed kind. Sales down, book-stores closing, fewer people giving them as presents, fewer children reading in print — and ebooks continuing their inexorable rise: last year, for the first time, ebook sales overtook the printed version: big numbers, but lower value. So how do publishers survive?

By adapting, says Jamie Byng, boss of Scotland’s most innovative publisher, Canongate. He points out that the number of small publishers is actually increasing. At last year’s Saltire Society Literary Awards, alongside familiar names such as Jonathan Cape were some that few had heard of: Clar,